Putin Rattles Russia's Sabers

June 19, 2001|By Patrick E. Tyler The New York Times

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin said Monday that if the United States proceeds on its own to construct a missile defense shield over its territory and that of its allies, Russia will eventually upgrade its strategic nuclear arsenal with multiple warheads -- reversing an achievement of arms control in recent decades -- to ensure that it would be able to overwhelm such a shield.

Putin made his comments in a meeting with U.S. correspondents that lasted nearly three hours Monday night and was organized last week to give him an opportunity to explain his views after his summit meeting with President Bush in Slovenia on Saturday.

The Russian leader emphasized that though he was buoyed by Bush's pledge that Washington and Moscow will work cooperatively in coming months to investigate the full ramifications of Bush's vision for a new security framework that includes missile defenses, Russia is also very "alert" to "unilateral" actions by the United States.

And in response to comments made Sunday in Washington by Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that the United States would proceed with missile defense "with or without Russia," Putin said that Russia would not threaten or try to prevent U.S. actions but that it would "augment" its nuclear forces without regard to treaties that now require the elimination of multiple warheads.

"When we hear statements that the programs would go with us or without us, well, we cannot force anyone to do the things we would like them to," he said. "We offer our cooperation. We offer to work jointly. If there is no need that such joint work is needed, well suit yourself."

However, Putin added, "we stand ready" to respond to any "unilateral" U.S. action even though Russia does not see an immediate threat from a missile shield.

"I am confident that at least for the coming 25 years," U.S. missile defenses "will not cause any substantial damage to the national security of Russia," he said. But he added that Russia will reinforce its defenses by "mounting multiple warheads on our missiles" and "that will cost us a meager sum. Thus the nuclear arsenal of Russia will be augmented multi-fold."

He said both the Start I and Start II treaties would be negated by a U.S. decision to build missile defenses in violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. Such a step would eliminate all verification and inspection requirements, he said, reviving an era in which Russia would hide its abilities and intentions.

Putin said Russia was ready to move expeditiously on talks with Bush's top aides. But he said he believed that the two sides first needed to discuss whether serious threats actually exist or might emerge, then determine what missile defense technologies might be brought to bear against them, and then decide which provisions of the ABM treaty came into conflict with such a system.

Speaking in the Kremlin library at the round conference table where he met President Bill Clinton last year, Putin also stated for the first time that Russia has taken an interest in ensuring that China's strategic concerns are addressed in the debate.

China has a much smaller nuclear missile force and fears that its national nuclear deterrent would be nullified by U.S. missile defenses.